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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visits South Korea on Monday for talks expected to involve Washington's goal of reshaping the role of U.S. troops in Korea and is also due to visit the DMZ border with North Korea, Reuters reported.

The defence chiefs are scheduled to hold the annual Security Consultative Meeting on Tuesday, the highest-level forum where the two countries chart the course of their military alliance and South Korea's defence against nuclear-armed North Korea.

South Korean Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back and Hegseth will discuss combined defence readiness against North Korea and cooperation on regional security and cyber and missile defence, the South's Defence Ministry said, according to Reuters.

Nigeria said on Sunday it would welcome U.S. help in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as its territorial integrity is respected, responding to threats of military action by President Donald Trump over what he said was the ill treatment of Christians in the West African country, Reuters reported.

Trump said on Saturday that he had asked the Defense Department to prepare for possible "fast" military action in Nigeria if Africa's most populous country fails to crack down on the killing of Christians.

"We welcome U.S. assistance as long as it recognises our territorial integrity," Daniel Bwala, an adviser to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, told Reuters.

Donald Trump has played down the possibility of a US war with Venezuela, but suggested Nicolas Maduro's days as the country's president are numbered, BBC reported.

Asked if the US was going to war against Venezuela, the US president told CBS' 60 Minutes: "I doubt it. I don't think so. But they've been treating us very badly."

His comments come as the US continues to launch strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean. The Trump administration says the strikes are necessary to stem the flow of drugs into the US, according to BBC.

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif early on Monday, killing at least 10 people and injuring about 260, authorities said, with the death toll likely to rise, Reuters reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit at a depth of 28 km (17.4 miles) near Mazar-e Sharif, which has a population of about 523,000.

"A total of 150 people injured and seven martyred have been reported and transferred to health centres as of this morning," said Samim Joyanda, the spokesperson for the health department in Samangan, a mountainous northern province near Mazar-e Sharif told Reuters.